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Can Anyone Look Cuul Smoking a Juul?

Welcome to Signs of the Times, a semi-frequent column that examines trends and other things people are doing.

I never got into Juuling. Whenever I tried it, I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio, but not the cool movie version. I felt like Leonardo DiCaprio teething on his e-cigarette at the Screen Actors Guild Awards a few years ago, staring into a glittering void while he considered the emptiness of fame.

I do see the utility of a Juul for a lifelong, addicted smoker: A Juul offers up nicotine without the cocktail of extra cigarette poisons, though this is sometimes obscured by the bad press. But I’ve always fallen into that more frivolous but still concerning category of smoker: the nondaily, or “social,” smoker. Specifically, I only smoke “when I’m drinking,” which is code for “when I’m flirting.” If my doctor asks, I flirt three times a year or less.

Even though smoking cigarettes was wretched and gave me diarrhea more often than not, I understood their allure from a flirting perspective. They were easily shareable, for one thing. Remember the guy in college who had a box of American Spirits peeking out of his Timbuk2 bag at all times, just in case someone cute needed an excuse to start a conversation? I dated him. Twice. Cigarettes were great because you could ask a stranger if you could bum one as an icebreaker, but you didn’t have to risk contact with his stranger germs—every time I suckle from a friend’s Juul, I feel a little jolt of too-soon intimacy. Cigarettes also gave you a reason to step outside on little smoking adventures: If you were chatting with someone in a loud bar, you could just say, “I’m going to go out for a cigarette if you want to join.” Then you got to go shiver outside together for ten minutes, bonding over your wanton disregard for your health and the cold.

Cigarettes were also flattering to the face in a way that Juuls aren’t. Now, I’ve never looked at a man smoking a cigarette and thought, “I want those smelly lips on mine right now,” but I have looked at a man smoking a Juul and thought, “That guy looks really stupid smoking that Juul.” You can tell someone is a veteran Juuler by his expression, which is simultaneously vacant and self-righteous. You can tell someone is a newborn Juuler because he looks down his nose at the Juul in wonder, like he’s playing a tiny recorder. (Incidentally, I just checked to see if anyone has ever tried to make a bong out of a recorder, and it turns out there’s a whole community around it. An amazing time to be alive.)

“You can tell someone is a newborn Juuler because he looks down his nose at the Juul in wonder, like he’s playing a tiny recorder.”

It was clear where the cigarette’s sex appeal came from. When a grown man smoked a cigarette, he was indexing all those rugged Marlboro ads from the olden days. He was indexing Marlon Brando. (The reality, of course, was less sexy: Marlon Brando probably had diarrhea all the time.) When a grown man smokes a Juul, he’s indexing tech nerds.

“I think Juuls look so cool. They don’t smell and they plug into a computer,” said one adult friend. “They’re like James Dean in Silicon Valley.” I briefly drifted off into a Homer Simpson stupor envisioning Silicon Valley James Dean strolling around the Google campus in a vest and shorts, vaping and asking people to “call him Jim.” I shuddered. Juuls were created by nerds, for nerds.

Teens usually hate nerd stuff, but it’s easy to understand why they took up Juuls. As rebellions go, Juuling is not as obviously harmful as smoking cigarettes or snorting a condom so deeply into one’s nose that it can be pulled out one’s mouth, but teachers and parents still hate it. The Juul is healthy-illicit. It’s the perfect teen vice. In November, Juul Labs deleted its Instagram and Facebook, noted portals to the teen psyche. The company also stopped selling most of its flavored pods after critics suggested that chaste youths, driven to sin by the mango and crème vapors, might take up smoking. Through an adult education campaign, Juul has doubled down on marketing itself as a smoking alternative for grown-ups, which is a noble goal at best and a marketing move à la margarine manufacturers calling marge “a healthy alternative to butter” at worst. Despite Juul’s efforts, the association remains and will remain: The Juul is to teens as the cigarette was to rebels without a cause.

“They immediately call to mind teens, immaturity, and fuccboi-ness,” another friend said of Juuls. “They are an immediate turn-off in my book.” Teens are smart: As soon as adults get into something, the teens back away from it (see also: Facebook). The reverse should be true, but many adults have no concern for generational cross-pollination. Granted, a lot of my friends are drawn to teen trends through a charming, ironic fascination. But adults who Juul recreationally seem to be pulled to it by something sadder: They want to look cool. “I have so many friends who never smoked cigs but who smoke Juuls now,” my friend went on scathingly. “They’re for people who don’t want to take responsibility for a real nicotine habit.” Jim Dean, in his vest.

A former colleague and frequent Juuler with an appropriate shame for the habit told me he likes being able to Juul furtively. “It’s easy to be discreet with them,” he said. “Like you look around, puff, then quickly put it away.” (Indeed, this friend had been Juuling for months before I caught him nursing it one day and ruined the discretion by shouting, with “et tu, Brute” despair, “You JUUL?”)

There’s only one way to look cool smoking a Juul: Make sure nobody sees you.